Loose ends...always loose ends for me to dispense with. Shall we see who else we can offend?
Augusta, Rich Augusta - A few days ago Shackelford pointed us to this Bob Harig ESPN piece on the state of the Masters and Augusta National Golf Club. As you no doubt know, ANGC has more money than God... Actually, strike that, ANGC leaves more money on the table than God has, per this:
But what makes the Masters so unique is that while Berckmans Place might be viewed as corporate excess, a badge to the tournament is a reasonable $250. That's for all four tournament rounds. Practice round tickets are $50, available only via lottery. Parking, on club property, is free. Lunch for a family of three? $12.50.
That's nothing compared to the money they forego on their television contract, in order to micromanage even the smallest details. That has all sorts of benefits, such as the limited commercials on the broadcast. But it's also the reason they didn't broadcast play on the front nine for decades, and why they now have no on-course reporters and no blimp.
But this is the item that amused Shack and me:
Many got a chuckle last week during Payne's annual pre-tournament news conference when a question came up about a proposed city of Augusta plan to have Berckmans Road, which runs along the spectator entrance, moved."It's no secret; we have significant economic success," Payne said. "And if in the case of the city [of Augusta], it being their decision to relocate the road; and once that decision was made, we were of course anxious for it to begin because it improves the traffic flow dealing with our tournament."So we kind of told them, don't worry about the money, that we will advance it, loan it to you, and so it helps us because the road gets built more quickly."Think about that. A golf club lending money to city government.
Yes, do think about that. It's really quite the thing considering how close the club came to failing during the depression.
Life After Tiger - We've seen a flurry of articles on this subject, beginning with lower Masters television ratings, the most apocalyptic version of which was probably this:
Without Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson, TV ratings for the Masters last weekend were expected to be relatively low. Based on the final numbers, though, they turned out to be the lowest in more than 50 years.
According to a Sports Media Watch report, the weekend ratings for Bubba Watson's second win at Augusta National were the lowest for CBS since 1957 - the year before Arnold Palmer won the first of his four green jackets.
OK, that's admittedly pretty bad, though it's also a time when there were four television channels available and they televised about four holes. Not sure exactly how that cuts, but as the informercial pitchman says, wait, there's more.
Then there's this Jake Simpson article in the Atlantic that asks the question:
When Tiger Woods is competitively irrelevant, what happens to golf?
Just to get their disagreement out of the way, per Simpson:
The 2014 Masters got a 7.8 rating for Sunday’s final round, meaning that just 7.8 percent of television viewers were watching. Over the full weekend, the Masters saw its smallest TV audience since 1993.
Here's as far as he goes in quantifying the problem:
Woods’s impact on fan interest in golf can be seen in Masters ratings since he turned pro in
Single-handedly bringing an industry to its knees. 1996. The Wire’s Eric Levinson found that weekend television viewership averaged 12.2 million when Woods was within five shots of the lead and only 11 million when he was more than five shots behind. That’s a 10 percent drop in viewers just when Woods fell out of contention, and this year’s anemic numbers showed the effect of his absence not just from the leaderboard, but the entire tournament.
Ten percent is certainly significant, but one would think it falls short of a free-fall situation.
But compare and contrast that seemingly even-handed take with this offering from the normally level-headed Josh Sens. Here's Josh's lede:
How much is that Tiger in the window, the one with the bristly disposition and the balky back?
Let’s call it $15 billion. According to one estimate, that’s the price we might ultimately pay if Woods remains removed from competitive golf.
$15 billion? Boy, that's a lot of scratch, no? But shall we let Josh build his case?
You knew the signs weren't great earlier this month, when tickets prices for the Masters fell after the Injured One announced that he’d miss the event for the first time in his professional career. Single-day badges, which had sold the day before for $1,165, plunged to $940, a drop of nearly 20 percent.
Small potatoes, right? But then came the tournament itself, which drew a paltry 7.8 TV rating,the lowest since Phil Mickelson’s 2004 win on Easter Sunday.
1957? 1993? 2004? It's apparently quite subjective, isn't it? You can spend as much time at those links as suits your needs, but for the record we'll stipulate that Masters ratings sucked. But Josh, back to that $15 billion number. Where the heck does that come from:
According to Brad Adgate, senior vice president and director of research for Horizon Media, a New York-based media services company, the 25-30 percent ratings drop we’re accustomed to seeing at Tiger-free events threatens to translate into similar percentage losses across the board.
Adgate and other analysts say it’s impossible to a put a precise price tag on Tiger’s absence. But if we do the math and arrive at a ballpark number in a golf industry valued at around $68.8 billion, it pencils out at roughly $15 billion. Gulp!
First things first...let's make sure Josh has climbed back in from the ledge. It maybe that there's a 30% ratings gap between the events Tiger plays and the ones he misses, but that covers a lot of causes. He obviously plays in the more important events that have stronger fields from top to bottom, and that even sans Tiger will get higher ratings than the Valero Texas Open.
Secondly, everyone seems to agree that those extra viewers are the more casual golf fans. Those viewers may have value to advertisers (though there's much focus on younger viewers in both pieces and their value to the manufacturer of Cialis seems dubious), but do we think their buying as many SLDR drivers as the core viewers? You know, the ones that actually play the game?
Apocalypse Not.
The Back Story - Neil Sagebiel had this horribly depressing post on golfers' backs. Turns out that the golf swing is not the best thing for your back...who knew? Here's the gist of it:
Golfers are getting injured in unprecedented numbers—amateur and pro alike—and the culprit is the modern golf swing. That's the only possible conclusion based on information I found while researching my ebook about Mike Austin (Perfect Swing,Imperfect Lies: The Legacy of Golf's Longest Hitter).
In August 2011, the PGA Tour posted an article on its website by Sean Cochran, who was identified as an expert in golf fitness. Cochran began this way: "Statistics indicate one out of every two golfers will incur a lower back injury at some point in their playing careers.""Axial rotations" of hips and shoulders, Cochran writes, "load the musculature of the core." On the downswing, the hips and pelvis are subjected to "angular velocities" of 400 to 500 degrees per second while the velocities in the shoulders and back reach 1100 to 1200 degrees per second.
"Every time golfers swing," Cochran concluded, "they are subjecting their lower spine to eight times their body weight." No wonder injuries have reached epidemic proportions. Given those numbers, golf isn't a sport, it's Russian roulette, and it seems to have gone largely unnoticed.
Not exactly an upbeat assessment. We might as well play while our bodies are able to absorb the punishment.
More Of This, Please - Luke Kerr-Dineen has the kind of post I'd like to see more of, how six players practice putting before their rounds. Nothing too earth-shattering, but here's an example:
 |
| Jonathan Byrd working on the putting green. |
Jordan SpiethWith three golf balls, Spieth spent about 10 minutes hitting putts with just his right hand. After that, he hit three golf balls from eight feet, gradually working his way around the hole and moving farther away until he got to 12 feet.
In a separate post, Kerr-Dineen also shares with us Tim Herron's new putting grip. Wally, if you're still with us, this one's for you:
 |
| Do note that the grip accommodates his cigarette. |
My bride is typically happy for any mention I can make of Lumpy, but who knew that his bad habits weren't limited to the dinner table?
The Most Interesting Tweets In The World - Golf Channel provides this cute feature on the best tweets about you-know-who. A couple of samples:
A couple of thoughts for Tripp Isenhour. First, you're spending way too much time on this and second, how about a photo taken this century? Just sayin'...
Aces Wild - Maggot sends along this video of the best holes-in-one on Tour:
Always fun, but my favorite part is the glimpse of Fluff from his days looping for Peter Jacobson. He was obviously a much younger man, though he doesn't necessarily look it.
No comments:
Post a Comment